Can’t Get Enough of That Wonderful Dufferin

On the west side of Dufferin Street, just south of Bloor, is a Wal-Mart. It is (currently) the only one in the former City of Toronto.
On the other side of Dufferin is Dufferin Grove Park. It is the very antithesis of Wal-Mart, a collective community creation that is an exemplar of neighbourhood engagement—public space of, by, and for the people.
Tonight, the Toronto Public Space Committee and Friends of Dufferin Grove Park invite you to contribute to this Hegelian dialectic by coming out for a dinner and movie screening under the stars (or, at least, trees). From 6:00-7:30 is the park’s usual Friday Night Supper: “Meal payments are by donation: main plates are $6 and soup/dessert is $2-$3, but no-one [sic] is turned away.” At dusk (8:30 or so), will be a screening of the 1971 NFB short The Men in the Park, followed by the feature documentary City Park: A Little Music For The Soul. The latter film, about Parc Lafontaine in Montreal, will be enjoying its Toronto premiere. Both movies will be projected from the Sumkidz Schoolbus, the engine of which is powered with waste vegetable oil and the projector and sound system of which are powered with solar energy. “The screening is FREE but we are asking for donations of $5 or PWYC.”
This is what summer in the city should be all about.Jonathan Goldsbie is a member of the Toronto Public Space Committee. Photo of Dufferin Grove’s Cob Courtyard by orbz on Flickr.